Jocko Willink Quotes
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Most of us aren't defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.
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It's not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn't sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?
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I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don't produce isn't because they don't have vision... or talent... in most cases, it's a lack of discipline.
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We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.
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I'm not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I'll accept that. But I'm not a complete psychopath.
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If all you're doing is grinding for the man, it's going to burden you. Once you say, 'Hey, I'm grinding for the man, but I'm putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,' you're working for you.
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We named the book 'Extreme Ownership' because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it's definitely an attitude that I had.
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If it's stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You've planned, you've trained, you've done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that's facing you. And then after that, there's nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.
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I did 20 years in the Navy. I joined the Navy right out of high school and went through Navy boot camp, went to SEAL training, got done with that, and then showed up at a SEAL team, where I did 20 years. That was pretty much my whole adult life.
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Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.
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The goal of jiu-jitsu in self-defense isn't to take someone down to the ground - the goal in jiu-jitsu for self-defense is actually to be able to defend yourself on the ground, get up, and get away from an attacker. That's what the goal is.
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We all have limitations. I don't have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don't have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports.
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Every day is a major balancing act that I have to figure out and coordinate.
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It's a lose-lose situation to get in a confrontation on the street. If you can break contact and get away, break contact and get away. That's what you should learn self-defense for.
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I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.
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Don't think in the morning. That's a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don't think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.
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Don't worry about motivation. Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable - and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you will likely fall short.
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Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.
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If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.
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With Benghazi, I don't see anyone saying, 'Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It's my fault.' I haven't heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that's just unbelievable to me.
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Some people, they take their form of working out as a religion that they think is better than everyone else's. I'm not like that. If you have a better way to work out, and you can teach it to me, and I find it to be useful and gets me in better shape, I'm all about.
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If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, 'You don't know anything.' Because everyone, when they're young, they think they know what's going on in the world, and you don't.
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The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people - their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.
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Being a kid's not easy. You're transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you're out in the world.